


Where Our Story Began

by gray_autumn_sky



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/pseuds/gray_autumn_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set directly after Smash the Mirror, Robin asks Regina if he can walk her home and when they get there, she gives him The Legend of Robin Hood–a book that both exasperates and surprises him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Our Story Began

It doesn’t matter that it’s raining and it doesn’t matter that that she drove to the library that night, when he asks if he can walk her home, she says yes before it even occurs to her to say no. He smiles at her quick reply and laces his fingers through hers as she opens the umbrella. She holds it up above them and they have to huddle close to stay dry as they slowly walk through Storybrooke, intentionally taking the longest route to Mifflin Street.

When they reach her doorstep, Robin looks up the darkened sky, watching the way the street lights illuminate the rain. “I suppose this is goodnight,” he says, looking back at Regina and shifting awkwardly on his feet.

“It could be,” she replies as her bottom lip catches between her teeth. “Or you could come in…dry off a little, warm up with some tea?” Her cheeks flush and her heart beats a little faster as his smile edges—she wants desperately for him to say yes, even though she knows that he shouldn’t. “That’s…if you want to. You probably need to go.”

“I’m in no rush,” he says easily.

“You spent last night with me and then all day today at the library…don’t you have to get back to your son?”

“Roland has been asleep for hours by now,” he’s quick to say. “And he spent the whole afternoon with me, looking at pop-up books and explaining Dr. Seuss to me, and eating take-out from Granny’s.”

“Explaining Dr. Seuss?” She asks, trying to stifle her impulse to laugh. “What was confusing about…Dr. Seuss?”

He offers her an exasperated sigh as his face contorts in confusion. “A _cat_ in a _hat_? I’ve never heard of anything as ridiculous. It makes no sense. It’s…”

“…a _children’s_ story,” Regina interjects before taking a breath. “So…does this mean you’ll…come in for a bit?”

Robin smiles and nods, and she fumbles with her key, finally turning it in the lock and letting them inside and closing away the rest of the world. She shakes off the umbrella and casts it aside as they both shed the wet coats and shoes. For a brief moment, she thinks that she could fix all of this with magic—have them dry and warm with a flick of her wrist—but that would take away her excuse for inviting him in, his excuse for being there…and she’s not ready to give that up.

And, if she’s being honest, she’s not ready to give _him_ up.

She’s never had someone like him—someone who believes so wholeheartedly in her, who looks at her and sees though the façade, who knows her story and is still willing to tell her she deserves to be happy. She hasn’t yet said it aloud, but she’s in love with him and she has been for some time.

“Oh,” he murmurs as he reaches into his satchel and pulls out the storybook he’d stolen from her vault that morning. “Before I forget to return this…” He chuckles softly as he extends the book to her, placing it in her hands. She smiles down at it and thinks of the page that magically appeared to him—similarly to how the book itself had appeared to Henry. Robin told her that night that he thought the page meant there was hope for her to find happiness, that a few wrong turns hadn’t spoiled everything. Part of her wonders just how many wrong turns there were, how many times their stories nearly intersected, and how many more pages of their story are waiting to reveal themselves.

“Should we make that tea?” He says, pulling her back into the present moment.

She blinks and a coy grin forms over her lips. “Actually,” she begins as she reaches out and takes his hand in hers. “There’s something upstairs that…I think you’ll be interested in.” His eyebrow arches and he lets her lead him up the stairs and down the hall until their standing at the threshold of her study.

“Oh…” Grinning, she looks back at him from over her shoulder as she flips the light switch, quickly making her way to a shelf and scanning the spines of books that haven’t been touched in years. “When you said upstairs…I thought…uh…” He stops, chuckling awkwardly as his rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “Never mind.”

“We said we weren’t going to do _that_ again.”

“We did say that,” he replies, his smile fading. “And if I recall, almost as soon as we said that, we found a way around it.”

“Robin…”

“I know…”

She sighs and pulls a book from the shelf, running her fingers over the dark red dust jacket. As they’d stood in the foyer, she’d remembered its existence. In the early years of the curse, she’d read through every book in her personal library, this one included—though several of the details were not fuzzy to her. There were several others like it, but this one was an anthology; and she thought, perhaps he’d get a laugh out of it—but now, she finds herself wondering if it’ll also help him to remember his life before the curse, his life before her, and she feels guilt pang at her core.

Despite all of the times she told him that he had to forget her and the romance that was budding between them, she was glad that he couldn’t; and despite all of the times she told him she wanted him to try again with Marian, she hadn’t wanted that at all.

She feels another pang of guilt, and she considers putting the book back on the shelf and telling him to go, that if he stayed any longer it would be yet another mistake. But before she can do that, he’s standing in front in front of her, lifting her chin with one hand while the other settles at her hip. His eyes are soft and his smile sincere, and when he touches her she finds it hard to remember all the reasons that he shouldn’t.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “You’ve got that look again.”

“What look?” She asks as if she doesn’t know.

“That look that says you’re feeling guilty for something you shouldn’t feel guilty about, that look that says you’re questioning yourself, that look that tells you that you shouldn’t be happy.” She scoffs and tries to look away, but he won’t let her. “I don’t regret what happened last night or what happened this morning. I don’t regret kissing you tonight and I don’t regret that I’m here with you now. I’m in love with you, Regina.”

In spite of herself, she smiles—she can’t not smile when he says that he loves her—it’s her automatic response. She wants to say it back, but the words catch in her throat and her smile fades. It would only make things harder. “But this is an affair,” she says instead. “You are _married_. Your wife and son deserve better than…an affair.”

He nods and lets his hand fall away from her cheek, but the one at her side remains and his thumb presses firmly against the fabric of her skirt. “I think it’s more complicated than that.”

“Is it?”

“I think it is,” he’s quick to say. “When I met you, Marian was dead—gone and never coming back. I loved her, but that was a long time ago and I was a completely different person back then—if the past couple of weeks have taught me anything, it’s that.” He shrugs his shoulders. “We never meant to hurt her.”

“No, but she _did_ come back and regardless of what we intended, this _will_ hurt her.”

“Suppose she never wakes up. Are we supposed to just put our lives on hold?”

“Suppose she does wake up,” Regina counters.

“Then Marian and I will have to have some very difficult conversations.” His hand slips around her hip to the small of her back. “Marian waking up isn’t going to change the way I feel about you.” He sighs. “And I’m sorry that I…thought it could or that it should.”

She takes a breath and finds herself chuckling softly. “Any person in their right mind would go running and screaming away from me, you realize that, right? You realize that you had your out?”

“I don’t want out,” he replies in voice that’s so sincere she almost believes him. “I’ve never wanted to be in something more than I’ve wanted to be in this, with you.” He grins as he looks down between them, pulling the book back with his index finger and peering down at the cover. “And what is _this_?”

“I just thought,” she begins, her eyes casting up to meet his. “Since you spent the day reading my story, perhaps you’d like to read your own.” His eyebrows arch in surprise as she hands the book to him. “Or at least, some version of your story.”

“The Legend of Robin Hood,” he reads aloud, his gaze moving over the title, then back to her. “Well, I can tell you, they already got one detail wrong—and it’s _quite_ a glaring error.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

A grin stretches over his lips as he turns the book toward her. “I am _much_ more handsome than they thought I was.”

She laughs out—not just a laugh, but a deep laugh that shines through her eyes and leaves a smile on her lips—the sort of laugh that relaxes her shoulders and makes her remember why she fell in love with him. He laughs too as he opens the cover and skims the table of contents.

“So, how about that tea?”

Looking up, he nods and grins at her as she takes his hand and leads him to the kitchen.

Robin settles on a stool with the book as Regina goes to the cabinet and pulls out a box of tea. She selects a tea for herself—an apple-infused green tea that never fails to relax her before bed—and for him she chooses a wild berry that she bought only because it reminded her of him. She glances up as she closes the tea box and he’s already turning to the second page of the first story. She grins when she hears an audibly frustrated sigh.

She says nothing; instead, she fills the kettle and waits for it to whistle. She hears him huff a couple of times and grins again as he mutters something she can’t quite make out as he turns the page. By the time the tea kettle whistles, he’s moved onto another story, skimming it more than reading it, and turning the pages aggressively.

“Do these writers have no obligation to get _any_ of the details right?”

Regina only smirks as he turns the page, immediately groaning as he mutters something else underneath his breath. She pours the tea and lets it steep, bending to watch as some of the stray tea leaves float through the water.

“And _this_? I…” He looks up at her and shakes his head. “This would be impossible,” he adds, as if she knows the exact detail he’s referring to. “An arrow would have _never_ …”

He trails off and turns to another story and she continues to watch the tea steeping.

“Roland doesn’t even seem to exist,” he tells her, exasperated by the particular detail. “How can _my son_ not exist within _my_ story? He’s not in _any_ of these.”

Leaning over, she kisses his cheek. “The tea is almost ready. I’m going to go start a fire in the fireplace.” She laughs as he huffs again, and she grabs the mugs of tea, discarding the tea leaves before disappearing into the living room.

She sets the mugs down on the table and tosses a fireball at the hearth, smiling in satisfaction as the fire catches. She spreads a soft blanket out on the floor and tosses a few pillows down onto it. And when she turns, Robin is slowly walking toward her, reading as he walks. His demeanor has changed and he’s reading intently, his brow furrowed and his eyes visibly scanning over the words.

“Find a good one?”

Slowly, he looks up at her, “I…I’m reading a story about a love affair that I had…with a Queen.”

“A…Queen?” She asks, her heart skipping a beat as she thinks of the page from the storybook—the meeting that never was—and she wonders if it’s possible they just don’t remember it.

“According to this story,” he begins, his eyes fixed on her. “She was a dark-haired beauty and we married in secret.”

Regina feels her mouth go suddenly dry as Robin crosses the room and drops the book down onto the coffee table. “Perhaps another detail this writer got wrong?"

“Perhaps,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “But perhaps not.” He smiles easily and she feels a fluttering in her chest. “Because when it comes to you and me, I don’t think I believe in coincidences.” He takes another step toward her as he leans in, kissing her softly. She leans in, too and her arms find themselves linking around his neck—and she wonders if he’s right and perhaps, their stories were always meant to be told together.


End file.
